Growing up in a Buddhist society, contentment has always been the goal. Moreover, with the idea of Gross National Happiness or happiness in general, I’ve always believed that contentment and peace of mind will ultimately lead to happiness or vice versa.
I’ve never been too competitive or ambitious as a child. However, as an adult, I find myself even more so content. I wouldn’t say that I’m happy or sad. I’m satisfied with what I have and what I have achieved. Sometimes, there’s small part of me wanting to do more but it’s never strong enough to actually make me do it. I’ve thought that I’ve finally reached a place where I’m content and peaceful. Yet, I wonder if this is in fact not contentment but instead complacency? Or maybe they are the same thing looked at from different point of views?
Of course, I get the basic idea of the difference between the two. Contentment is the state of being happy or satisfied in life. Complacency, on the other hand, is sort of a negative satisfaction without care for more improvement. Contentment and complacency are supposed to be polar opposites but somehow, they seem to be the same. One person might say that I’m a content person whereas someone else, who is not too impressed with me, might say that I’m very complacent.
Before graduating, I had a lot of productive things I wanted to do once I reached home, including updating my blog on a regular basis. However, as you can tell, I’ve not really done much. I’ve been telling myself that I’m content and I’m happy. As long as I’m happy, do I really need to challenge myself and make my life harder? Well, I do know the answer to the question. In order to become a better, productive person, I must learn to challenge myself.
However, the real question I have is whether contentment is actually a good thing. I don’t know if it’s just me, but from my experience, it leads to complacency. Well, what the heck do I know? Maybe I haven’t ever felt real contentment and all I’ve been doing is being a complacent procrastinating idiot.
Well, there’s still almost three months left till the end of the year. I’m going to stop being content or complacent or whatever the heck I’ve been and finally do something productive. Hmm… actually, that’s what I’ve been saying the entire year…